Dr Bob Anderson and Dr Jason Tye-Din, Coeliac NZ Conference 2023
Dr Bob Anderson is gastroenterologist, immunologist, and drug and diagnostics developer specialised in coeliac disease. He is the current President of the International Society for the Study of Coeliac Disease, and this year was awarded the Research Excellence Prize by the Celiac Disease Foundation (USA) for contributions to understanding coeliac disease. Bob studied medicine and then completed a PhD at Otago University before training in gastroenterology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He then spent four years as a scientist at Oxford University focused on vaccinology and discovering the specific gluten peptides responsible for coeliac disease. Returning to Melbourne, he launched the coeliac disease lab at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and then gradually shifted focus to leading the commercial development of the first specific immunotherapy for coeliac disease, Nexvax2. He was based in Boston until 2019 and then returned to Australia where he is now leading the development of diagnostics for coeliac disease and other immune conditions at Novoviah Pharmamceuticals and is also in clinical practice in Mackay QLD.
Dr Jason is a gastroenterologist who runs the Coeliac Research Lab at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne. His research aims to understand why and how gluten causes symptoms and damage in people with coeliac disease and using this information to develop better ways to diagnose, monitor, and treat it. He works closely with academic and industry partners and runs a wide range of projects including the development of a novel diagnostic blood test, non-invasive monitoring of the gluten-free diet, examining the safety of oats, the role of the microbiome in symptomatology, and developing and testing a range of new coeliac treatments. Jason runs a Coeliac Clinic at the Royal Melbourne Hospital where he manages people with coeliac disease and gluten-related issues including many with non-responsive and refractory disease. He leads the Coeliac Theme of the Australian ENDIA study examining the environmental factors important in the development or “triggering” of coeliac disease.